The Life and Times of the Woman In Red
by The Woman in Red
Summary: The first three installments of a serialized story with an attitude that takes place in the reality known as the Matrix


ABORT/RETRY/FAIL 

One of the best amenities of the office complex in the Matrix where we operate a research facility is the park-like setting. There are numerous trails winding through the rather manicured woods that separate the various buildings. Health freaks use them for jogging. My friends and I know that being a health freak is a total waste of time in the Matrix, so we just use them for roaming around when we get bored with being cooped up in the Center all day long. We go outside to play, basically. 

The three of us, Lisa and Anne and I, were out for one of our walks when we were accosted by another tenant from a start-up that had moved in to the complex last week. He was overly friendly, so I used one of my arsenal of what are sometimes called parlor tricks, and other times called dirty tricks, to get rid of him. 

Until Neo was revealed as being "the One", I was one of the rabble of children, teenagers, and adults known as "Potentials". I often referred to us as the "waiting list". We all have the same gift, but mine was never particularly useful or powerful. I can bend spoons, change stoplights and make things appear out of nowhere. Like I said, parlor tricks and dirty tricks. This one I call the "Jedi mind trick". I use it on would-be suitors. I've found it works equally well on coppertops and the people of Zion. 

I smiled at him, "These aren't the women you are looking for." 

He addressed us, "You aren't the women I am looking for." 

Lisa and Anne snickered, and I kept smiling as he wandered off down the path, walking a bit stiffly. The effect would wear off within fifteen minutes and he wouldn't even remember that he had talked to us. It comes in real handy in clubs. 

I was trained in software analysis, and various forms of combat and intelligence work and put to work on a project studying the Matrix. Ten years later, I am now running the Zion Research Centre in an anonymous office complex on the outskirts of the city. We study the Matrix and the Agents, looking for weaknesses and trying to determine the exact specifications of each. 

In my spare time-my hobby is creating games that run in the Construct-I have discovered a few neat little bits of functionality that I've hard-coded into the Construct to level the playing field a bit. I realized that when we are all jacked into the Matrix, we are actually hardwired into a network in the real world, therefore we should have instant messaging and chat capability. We are still in beta-testing, but it pretty much makes us telepathic inside the Matrix or any games running in the Construct. 

We can communicate individually or as a group-and we don't need stupid earpieces like the Agents do. We can also communicate with our Operator, as his headset and terminal are wired into the same network we are. My goal is to do away with the cell-phones we currently use. The Agents can track them because they exist in the Matrix, whereas the chat and IM capability are based in the real world and are transparent to them. Besides, if there is no spoon, there is no cell phone either. They are just props for minds that don't believe in the paranormal. 

It had been a heavy day of really boring meetings with bureaucrats-we are in the process of moving to a new building and the people whose building we will be sharing just love meetings. We'd been facilitating, flowcharting and creating action items all day. So we were cutting up, running around, throwing things at each other, making a lot of noise and generally blowing off steam. 

As ever in the lead, I was running away from Lisa and Anne when I ran smack into him. Literally. It was like running into a brick wall. Completely impervious. My face was smashed into his shoulder and I noticed that he was wearing a white lab coat. 

Only one group in our office park wears white lab coats outside-everyone else takes theirs off when they leave the building. The other tenants all refer to them as the Spooks and the outfit they work for as the Shop. Obviously federal, very top secret, a front for some sort of sneakiness. Every six months or so they pretend to move out and be replaced by a new group. All they really do is change the sign and their badges-the staff doesn't change. 

All the other tenants avoid them like the plague. We don't socialize with them, and if we pass them, we nod and greet them, but don't look at their faces. We've been shunning them for years. They finally got the message and stopped attending the monthly Tenants Association meetings. The chair absolutely refused to recognize them and no one would sit anywhere near them. 

He smelled oddly familiar (accent on the oddly) and I put my hands against his chest to push myself away, when he wrapped arms like steel beams around me and his voice, although soft and musical, went through me like a sharp knife, "Well, well, what do we have here?" 

I knew that voice, and the smell. I didn't have to see his face to know what he was and who he was. 

They came for me once when I was five years old. Three official-looking men in dark suits, shiny loafers and sunglasses. This one had picked me up and held me on his lap while another one warned my mother about a ring kidnappers who had targeted me. She knew better. A woman had been passing out flyers in the neighborhood the day before. These men were the kidnappers she described. My mother refused their offer of a safe house for me (and only me) and finally they went away. The woman came back for me that night. Why does the red pill have to be so damned big? 

I couldn't breathe, I couldn't move and I fainted-sort of cowardly I know, but this was my first Agent encounter since that long ago Saturday afternoon. I came to lying across his lap, he still had me locked against him, there was no way of escaping. I didn't panic, I just dug around in my bag of dirty tricks and found something to try. 

I looked up at him and stated, "These aren't the droids you are looking for." I put everything I had behind it. 

I had no idea whether or not this was going to work until he said, "These aren't the droids I'm looking for." 

I grinned at him rather triumphantly, "We can go about our business." 

He smiled back, "You can go about your business." 

He let go of me finally, and I rose smoothly to my feet and instructed the other two mentally to start walking away, "Move along." 

"Move along," he agreed, still sitting there in the grass, smiling. 

I nearly knocked the other two down as I bolted down the path, headed for our building at a dead run. I yelled at them mentally to haul ass as I tore past a couple of health freaks out for a late afternoon power walk. I never looked back to see if we were being followed-that's usually how you get killed if you are running from an agent. NEVER look back. 

Once safely back in my office, I threw myself into my chair and spun it around, swearing, "Shit! Shit! Shit! I can't fucking believe that worked on him. I thought we were all dead." 

Lisa said, "What are you flipping out about, of course it worked, it always works. It worked just a few minutes before on that other guy. What?" 

They both flopped in my visitors chairs, tipped them back and propped their feet up on the desk. I pulled out three sets of Agent Encounter Report forms from a folder and shoved a copy at each of them. "Yes, it works on humans, but it's never been tried on an Agent before." Loud thumps indicated that their chairs were now resting on four legs instead of two. They sat staring at me in horror. 

"Yes, my friends, the fellow who was not looking for us droids, is Agent Brown itself." I shuddered as I got skeeved out again just thinking about it. Nasty. I suddenly felt unclean after being touched by it. 

"No way!" shrieked Anne. "That was just one of the Spooks from over at the Shop. He was wearing one of those lab coats, and this month's badge. He's no Agent." 

"Yeah," agreed Lisa, "he's just one of those creepy weirdo's that no one talks to. You must have hit your head when you blacked out. You don't really think your Jedi mind trick works on Agents." 

I sighed and walked over to a grouping of large, clear photographs on the wall opposite my desk. I call them my rougues' gallery. Agents Smith (his photograph black bordered as a sign of mourning), Jones and Brown. Without saying a word, I took down Agent Brown's photograph and held it before them. They looked at it, looked at each other and conferred mentally for a time. 

"Shit," they chorused, "that's him alright." 

"Ohmygod," Lisa squawked, "I am so glad your Jedi mind trick worked on him. We would have been deader than shit." 

It rained cats and dogs all that night and most of the following day. The next afternoon the clouds finally cleared. We went out for another walk, but we were more alert, not wanting to be surprised again. 

We found Agent Brown still sitting there in the grass, soaked to the skin and a bit muddy, the same smile on his face. Anyone seeing him there would assume that some stupid Spook had taken a trip on some chemical or other. Acid, or maybe shrooms. Or whatever they had cooked up in the Shop. 

"Shit, Phoenix, what the hell did you do to him. The Jedi mind trick doesn't do that to people." 

"Well," I admitted, "I did put a bit more effort behind it than when I'm using it on a human. I wanted to make sure it worked." I bent over and peered at the Agent's face, then gingerly removed his sunglasses. He didn't blink, but his pupils did contract when the sunlight hit them. 

"It's still alive, or whatever." I took one of his hands and lifted it to his shoulder height and let go. It didn't drop back to his side. 

"Whoa," said Anne, laughing "he's like, totally catatonic." 

Lisa started to howl, "Agent-dude's like, you know, broken or something. What's wrong?" 

It really bugs me when they do our slacker talk during a crisis. "Guys, I think he's locked up or crashed because of what I did." 

"Oh yeah," drawled Anne, "I forgot, he's not a people, he's a program." 

"Precisely, and he's not exactly running under Windows95, so I'm not getting a GPF, or BSOD or any other type of error message. But he's definitely "not responding". 

I stood there looking at him for a long moment and addressed them both, "Come on, we've had that Agent isolation room set up for years and it's never been used, at last we have a specimen to examine." I moved behind him and put my hands under his arms and heaved. He was a dead weight and unpleasantly wet and clammy. "You guys want to help me with this, or what?" 

"Or what." 

"With friends like you, who needs Agents?" I sighed and used a parlor trick to make it easier to lift and carry him back to the Centre. 

NEXT INSTALLMENT: How do you reboot an Agent? 

How do you reboot an Agent? 

With my two fine friends alert for any other tenants roaming the pathways, I dragged the unresisting Agent back to the Center, hauled him in through one of my doors-another little parlor trick I'll explain later, and propped him up next to the elevator. Whew! 

I pushed the "down" button, leaned against the wall and pushed my hair back out of my face. Even though I knew better, I was still exhausted and panting. My once pristine red suit was soaking wet and streaked with mud. And my Chanel pumps were ruined. I loathe being dirty. Thank heavens for the Construct-no dry cleaning bills for me. 

The elevator arrived and I manhandled Brown into it, leaving him slumped in a heap while I unclipped my badge, scanned it and entered my password to get access to the sub-basement where the control room for the Agent Isolation Room was located. 

The three of us stood squeezed into the corner opposite where Agent Brown sat like a broken marionette. None of us really wanted to get very close to him. Not out of fear of something so obviously dysfunctional, it was disgust more than anything else. 

Finally, the elevator stopped and the doors opened on a dusty hall, almost forgotten in the bowels of the building. I dragged Brown out by his feet, forgetting, until a rather unpleasant thump reminded me, that I should have repositioned him first so I wouldn't bang his head on the floor. Oops, my bad. Lisa flipped on the lights in the Control room and Anne started booting up the PC's and turning on the various monitors, activating cameras that were miles away at the actual location of the Agent Isolation Room. 

More commonly called "the Box", the isolation room was actually located miles away, buried deep in bedrock, a featureless metal box, made of steel walls several feet thick and no doors. It had required a team of Potentials to build and to install the functionality needed to disrupt the signals the Agents required to transfer to another client (gotta love those dirty tricks). A monument to bureaucratic stupidity, this phase of the Agent Research Project had been ill considered from the beginning. First, catch an Agent. 

The Box was intended to contain an Agent who was conscious, furious and focused on breaking out. There was no furniture, no fixtures and no ventilation system. I left Brown lying in a corner, opened a door into the Box and stepped in and surveyed the room. "I don't think this is going to work as is. I'll have to make a few interim changes." 

One of my neatest tricks is my ability to create a door and pass through it into pretty much anywhere within the Matrix that I want to go. Someone with more brains than sense called my doors "trans-hyperspatial dimensional gateways", but to me, they are just doors. You grab the knob, give it a turn and open it. 

I added a steel cube and placed a futon mattress on top of it, neatly made up with hospital-cornered sheets. I installed ventilation-yes I know that's not really air I'm breathing, but I still want to breathe it. 

I went out and brought in my patient and stood him up next to the bed. *Lisa, get me a cart with two sets of scrubs and a stack of towels, and be ready to capture any observations that I might make. Finally, we've got our specimen.* *Anne, I'll need you to inventory his effects for me, so get a clipboard and a large trashbag, this stuff is rather wet. And another trashbag for my clothes, they are pretty far gone. * The two rushed to comply as I nerved myself up for the next piece. 

When Lisa wheeled the cart in, I stripped off , toweled dry and dressed in nice neat scrubs. I grabbed another towel and briskly rubbed his hair and face dry. Now, for the really icky part. *Anne, ready to inventory? * At her mental assent I started removing Agent Brown's sodden clothing. 

"One pair standard Agent issue sunglasses." "One clip on identification badge, Automaton Institute for Scientific Research. Name: Dr. A. Brown" "One white lab coat, nothing in the pockets." 

That wasn't so bad. "One gold tie bar, worn unfashionably high." "One dark brown silk necktie, no label." "One suit jacket, single breasted, two buttons, again, no label. Realistic looking FBI badge in leather badge holder in pocket. Name: Special Agent Brown." "One leather shoulder holster with standard Agent issue pistol." This I carefully handed to Anne for unloading. 

Maybe I can do this without suffering any serious emotional damage. "One pair cufflinks, gold." "One off-white shirt, French cuffs, no label." "One radio thingie with earpiece. No manufacturer" 

I picked up another towel and dried him off to the waist. I noted something very peculiar. "Guys, check this out, he has no facial or body hair except the top of his head, eyebrows and eyelashes." I produced a magnifying glass and examined his cheeks and around his mouth. "He doesn't even have any hair follicles." 

Lisa snickered, "Must have been designed by cost-cutting bureaucrats. They didn't want to waste resources on anything that wouldn't show. Agents usually don't get that close to people." 

Anne remarked, "Get on with it woman, lets see where else he doesn't have hair." 

Oh, God, I don't want to do this part. This is so revolting. "One belt, brown leather, gold buckle. No markings. One leather holster, again standard Agent issue pistol." Smarting under a barrage of disgusting mental remarks speculating as to whether or not Agents wore boxers or briefs or had pubic hair, I unbuttoned and unzipped. *Boxers, you win, Anne..* 

"One pair pants, no label. One pair boxers-and I ain't looking for the damn label. No pubic hair, now shut the hell up already. This is totally skeeving me out here. And No, I do not wonder whether or not he's fully functional like Mr. Data." 

"He's pretty well endowed," smirked Lisa. 

"Yeah, and he's got a really nice ass, too," leered Anne. 

*Oh, how I hate you both right now.* I dried the exposed areas (my eyes squeezed shut and my head turned away for good measure) and pushed him to a sitting position on the "bed" and knelt at his feet to unlace his shoes. "One pair not-so-shiny-anymore brown loafers. One pair white socks." I threw the pants and boxers into the bag. 

I quickly dressed him in the scrubs that Lisa held out to me, laid him out on the mattress and covered him up. His staring eyes unnerved me, so I closed them as if he was the dear departed. 

I shooed them out and closed the door. He was now completely confined, and absolutely useless for our scientific purposes. We needed a responsive specimen, not a comatose rag doll. Phoenix the clean freak headed for the shower. I really didn't like touching him, it made me feel unclean and want to gag. Too many good people had fallen at his hands. 

I returned to the control room some time later, feeling clean and wearing another tailored red suit and fresh pumps. Lisa and Anne were obviously paying no attention to our guest, concentrating instead on a rowdy game of Mortal Kombat on the PlayStation kept there for just such emergencies. Brown's effects were laid out neatly on a nearby table and I picked up his radio and fiddled with it. 

"OK, you two, now we need to figure out our next step. How the bloody hell do you reboot an Agent?" 

Just then a deep male voice spoke from the radio's earpiece, sounding rather annoyed, "Brown? Brown? What's your 20? Please acknowledge." I looked at the gadget as if it had suddenly turned into a live snake in my hands. "That just might be the Agent program's tech support hotline." I put the earpiece in my own ear and activated the microphone, "Agent Jones, I presume." 

NEXT INSTALLMENT: No more f**king Abba! 

NO MORE F**KING ABBA! 

"Who are you?" demanded Agent Jones, his basso profundo voice reverberating through the earpiece that wasn't exactly adjusted for human ears. I twiddled a few knobs on the radio unit before responding. 

"That's not important. I know who and what you are. You wouldn't know me, I've kept rather a low profile over the years. What matters is that I'm the person who has your colleague in custody." 

I winced, but his voice never lost its measured tones, "Custody?" he snorted. "That's not possible. No mere human can keep one of us imprisoned." 

I sighed and rolled my eyes, "Agent Jones, I'm not going to sit here and discuss my theories about what is and isn't possible within the context of the Matrix. We'd be here all night, as they are quite well-developed and I have considerable data to back them up. Take my word for it, he is beyond your reach, and I can keep him here indefinitely." 

"I believe you are bluffing." 

"Then explain to me how it is that when you contacted him via radio you got me, instead?" I smirked, and Lisa and Anne (who were hearing his words echoed directly from my mind) both gave me a thumbs up. "Hmmm…hard to find an explanation for that?" 

He just grunted. 

"Actually, I'm glad of the chance to speak with you, as I need your help." 

"My help? You tell me you are holding Brown prisoner, but you want my help." 

"Yeah, I forgot he wasn't human when I encountered him, and I did something that appears to have interfered with his operation. There is much that we don't know about the Agent application in its various versions and there isn't exactly a manual or a tech support hotline to call when it doesn't work." 

"What? That's not possible. You cannot 'interfere' with our operation." 

I sighed again, and my colleagues started poking each other and giggling. *hush you two, this is serious.* "Agent Jones, a lot of things that you don't know about are possible. Your fellow program is right now completely unresponsive and has spent the last 24 hours sitting in the grass getting rained upon since I crashed him." 

"He is catatonic, and completely useless for our purposes. If you don't stop arguing with me about beliefs and possibilities, I'm going to let Neo try and reboot him. As you have seen, he tends to be a bit rough. Brown probably wouldn't survive the attempt. If you want him back, in his original shape, you will need to work with us a bit. Once we get him back up and running, we'll observe him for a time and then release him to you. All I want is more data. It's your choice." 

"I see. Tell me where he is and I'll come there and work with you, and together we can resolve this issue." His voice was sweetly persuasive. 

"Yeah, right. That sounds like a pretty good deal-NOT! Do you really think we mere humans are that stupid? We will meet, but in a public place I know of where no one asks questions. We can discuss the situation, and I'm sure to have the opportunity to demonstrate what I did to Brown. Then we can 'work together to resolve this issue'". 

"Very well, when and where?" 

I gave him the location, and Lisa and Anne really started to howl. It was not the sort of place that an Agent would fit in. *Hey, it's the only place I go that doesn't have a dress code. They wouldn't let him in the door at ManRay.* "Meet me there tomorrow night at 9:00. I'll be the woman in red sitting at the bar. I'll use this thing to contact you if there are any changes." 

"Agreed." 

I yanked the earpiece out and turned off the radio. Lisa goggled at me, "You are really going to meet Jones. You're crazy. He's fully alert and ready for action. He'll kill you," she wailed. 

"Lees, I wasn't born yesterday. I'm going to arrange for cover that will neutralize any threat from Jones." *Operator, can you patch me through to the Neb, I need to talk to Neo. I've got to call in a favor or two.* 

Later, I went back into the Box and checked Brown for any signs of change. Still no response. I returned to the Control Room and dismissed my friends for the night, I would take the graveyard shift to observe him, and they could take the two shifts during the day. I took my laptop and some snacks and returned to the Box, where I made a few more modifications for my own comfort. 

The sound system was a definite improvement, I like to headbang when I'm working. I sat on the end of the "bed" and worked on my monthly status reports, drafted an initial report on the situation, and read my email. Brown didn't so much as twitch, even when I cranked up Rob Zombie to a level guaranteed to wake the dead and really piss them off. Dragula is one of the all-time great metal songs. 

I wouldn't make a good night watchman. I woke up rather groggily somewhere around dawn, the music had stopped, and I was lying facedown on top of my computer, curled up against…UGH! I leapt up, skin crawling, and decided to finish my shift in the control room. I deleted the sound system and made sure that the Box had been returned to its original specs, except for the "bed". 

Lisa relieved me at 9:00 am, and I logged out of the Matrix and returned to the real world, where I took a long nap and had a much-dreaded meeting with my boss regarding our guest. He was delighted that we finally had our chance to use the Box, even though our subject wasn't terribly lively. Any data is better than no data. 

I got to Jacques' a bit early, some friends of mine were performing and I wanted to say hello to them before their set. Oops, there was already a woman in red sitting at the bar. No, on second look, just one of the many transvestites, crossdressers, and female impersonators who frequent the place. I found a seat with a good view of the door. Neo had stationed himself in a booth nearby where he could see me without being seen. 

"Phoenix, girl, where have you been?" One of my friends had emerged from the dressing room and was teetering across the club towards me on "her" six-inch heels. "I love that dress." She hugged me carefully. 

I grinned at her, my newest acquisition was floor length red latex, slit so high on the thigh you could see what I had for breakfast. Hers was a bit more creative, as always. She was wearing a costume made entirely out of thong sandals, with matching earrings and bag. "Mitzi, darling, you look fabulous." 

She preened, "Thanks, the sunshine sisters should be out shortly, they are still bickering in the dressing room, as always. Why haven't we seen you around here," she inquired, hands on her hips. 

"Actually, my gang's kind of taken over ManRay. Every Friday, we go there for Fetish Night. This place has just gotten too tame." I looked around at the crowd of well-dressed men in suits and outlandishly costumed men in dresses. 

"I see your point. So, what brings you here on a Friday? Wink,wink. Nudge, nudge," She leered. 

"I'm meeting someone that I couldn't meet at ManRay. I doubt that he owns anything in black leather." She winked and grinned. "No, not that sort of someone. Believe me, I'd rather die than date this asshole." 

"Ah, work related. Here they come, fashionably late as ever. Felicia, Bernadette! Look who's come to see us." More hugs. The two of them were still arguing over what numbers to perform that night. 

"But I want to do Super Trouper, I love Abba," whined Felicia. 

Bernadette sighed, "I know. Only someone who really loves Abba and is truly sick and twisted would wear an Abba-turd around her neck." 

"Please," begged Felicia, "just this once." 

"I've said it before, and I'll say it again. No more fucking Abba." Bernadette stalked off and ordered a drink at the bar. 

Mitzi rolled her eyes, "Looks like we are going to have a fun night. I'll talk to you later." We air-kissed, and she sauntered off to placate Bernadette, Felicia following behind. OK, so my friends are not exactly mainstream, but they are a lot more fun than so-called 'normal' people. 

A few minutes later, I heard the unmistakable melody of the Super Trouper intro and the three of them took the stage. I sipped my drink and leaned against the bar to watch them. They really are terrific performers. 

They had just left the stage after their first set when I realized that it was nearly 9:00. My heart started pounding, and I had to set my drink down and use the straw. The rattling of the ice in the glass was betraying my fear. I shifted position so that I could see the door in the mirror over the bar. 

At 9:00 precisely, he walked in and made a beeline for the "woman" in red at the bar. Apparently Jones isn't terribly smooth as he promptly got his face slapped by the cross-dresser. I wondered idly to Neo if that was the first time. He stepped away from the offended man and looked around. I took the initiative and walked over to him. 

I smiled and offered my hand, "Agent Jones, how good of you to come. We spoke earlier about your colleague." I'd soak the hand in Lysol later. 

He looked a bit surprised, but remembered his manners and shook my hand, "How do you do. Sorry about the confusion, I had no idea what you looked like other than you told me you would be sitting at the bar wearing red." 

"Actually I told you I would be the woman in red sitting at the bar. That was a man." He looked horrified and glanced over at the still-fuming CD. Why did they have to make these things so damned square. 

We returned to my place at the bar, he was crowding me a bit, really creeping me out. I will not be intimidated by a bunch of lines of code. No matter how many guns they might be carrying. "Back off, Jones. I'm unarmed, but I've brought a friend along that even you don't want to mess with." Neo stood up, let him have a good look and then sat back down again. "Just behave like a gentleman and we can avoid any unpleasant hostilities." 

He stepped back and got right to the point. "What is Brown's status?" 

"Unchanged. He just lies there. He's got a pulse and respiration, but is totally unresponsive." 

"Exactly what did you do that you believe caused this to happen?" 

"I'll show you. See that guy in the flashy black suit. He's been eyeing me for a bit. Stay put and watch the master at work." I rather theatrically shook back my hair and took a step back and turned away from Jones with an angry look on my face as if he'd made some comment I found offensive. I glanced at Mr. Flashy Suit, glanced away and then gave him a melting look from beneath my eyelashes. I pulled out a cigarette from the case in my purse and put it in my red-lipsticked mouth. 

He nearly trampled several people as he made it to the bar in record time, lighter at the ready. I let him light my cigarette, smiled, and then addressed him. 

"I am not the woman you are looking for tonight." 

His eyes glazed over, "You are not the woman I am looking for tonight," he agreed. 

"Move along," I said in an undertone. He wandered off. 

I put out the cigarette and turned to Jones, who was staring in amazement. "How did you do that." 

"There is no how, there is only do. I have no idea how it works, like a lot of things in the Matrix, it just does if you believe it will. I've been using it on guys like that ever since I hit puberty. I call it my Jedi mind trick-I learned it from a scene in Star Wars. Never tried it on an Agent before-but then that was my first encounter with an Agent." 

"I know the scene. 'These aren't the droids you are looking for.'" 

"Exactly, I just used a lot more effort behind it when I hit Brown with it. Usually it's just a light touch, this was more like using a sledgehammer. I wanted there to be no margin for error-I don't usually carry a gun and he had me trapped and I needed to escape. But I've apparently halted his execution and I don't know how to restart him. I could get rid of him by hauling him out of where we have him confined and shooting him in the head, then he's your problem in his new host, but I need my data first. Then he's all yours-I certainly don't want to keep him around. Being around him totally grosses me out, I'd rather stick my head in a bucket of spiders." 

He stood a minute digesting this, "I'll have to review the documentation. I don't know what the resolution is. This is something unique and I don't know if this set of circumstances was ever considered when we were developed. It may be that only you can undo what you did." 

"Very well," I offered my hand again, "I'll wait to hear from you, and I'll continue to work on a solution from my end." I gave him a number to call that would eventually route a voice mail message to me, and then I could return his call using Brown's radio. 

Calm, cool and collected, I walked to the back door, Neo at my side. I didn't look back. 

Once through the door and safely back at the Centre, I finally allowed myself to give in to the shakes and collapsed in my desk chair and put my head on the desk. "Oh, gawd, that was so awful." 

"You were really professional," admired Neo. "You sure you've never done field work before? You handled Jones as if you were at a church social. You are probably the first of our people who's ever been polite to him. And I know you are the first to shake his hand." 

"I didn't know what else to do, so I treated him the same as anyone else I have meetings with. Ack. I wanted to throw up on him. Agents just disgust me so. Gross. That's why I've only studied the Matrix up until now, not them." I looked at the clock. Time to leave for ManRay and forget about Agents until closing time, then it was back to the Centre for my shift observing my guest. 

"Thanks again, Neo. Let's head out, I'll buy the first round. I want to get very drunk." 

NEXT INSTALLMENT: Agents and hangovers just don't mix 


End file.
